


Cold Day in Snowdin

by ReaderRose



Series: Unrelated Events From An Unnamed Underfell Timeline [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell, Angst, Brotherly Angst, Character Death, Death, EXP and LOVE (Undertale), Every Time I Can't Find An Underfell Angst Fix I Will Hurt A Skeleton, Gen, Monster Dust (Undertale), Obsessive Behavior, Panic, Papyrus Has Issues, Sans Has Issues, Underfell Papyrus, Underfell Sans, Undertale Saves and Resets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-19
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-31 16:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12136296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaderRose/pseuds/ReaderRose
Summary: UNDERFELLPapyrus was dead. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew.He knew.





	Cold Day in Snowdin

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to read some non-fintcest Underfell angst and came up short so I decided to hurt a skeleton as ransom. It's a quick piece of angst and not much else.
> 
> This is vaguely connected to my other Underfell shorts, though exactly where it fits in along the timeline is a little unclear. It's heavily tied into [A Joke](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9763919) but not quite a continuation. 
> 
> Warnings for obsessive behavior, panic/anxiety (not quite an attack, but getting there), death, just... basically bad Underfell things.

It's a chilly day, even for Snowdin. The skeleton brothers have sentry duty. Sans stayed in. It's cold. He hates the cold, and something is wrong. 

Everything about today says he should stay home, so he does. He can't convince Papyrus. Papyrus prefers the cold, says he can't even feel it. Sans is pretty sure he's a dirty liar, but he lets him lie. Even today, when everything screams at him that he should call him out, make him stay. 

He feels better now that he's made his decision to stay, but soon enough the anxiety starts up, and it doesn't stop until he feels like screaming. 

Now Sans watches the door with eyelights fixed, bones rigid, something leaden and cold in the core of his soul. 

Something is wrong.

 

_ His brother is dead.  _

 

He knows his brother is dead. He doesn't know how he knows, but he knows. 

He knows, he knows, he knows, and yet he waits for a sign that he is wrong. 

There is no proof that Papyrus is dead. No proof, no sign, no indication. Besides a barely perceptible chill in the air, there is no reason for him to think that, let alone assume it, but he  _ knows. _ When he woke up that morning, when he saw the date, when he felt the draft from his cracked window, when he smelled the burnt breakfast, more spice than normal, a different scent, a different burn, something familiar that called to him and screamed in his mind that something was very, very wrong, and he needed to stop it.

It's just an ordinary day.

But it isn't. Something bad happens today. Something bad always happens today. But Sans doesn't know why he knows that, or why he thinks he knows that, and he doesn't know why he thinks this day has happened more than once. It feels like he should know. It feels like there is something he has forgotten. 

But he can't find any evidence that that is true. He's panicking. He can't find holes in his memory like this. The whole thing is a hole when his mind is so focused on mourning a tragedy that he just knows has just occurred. 

 

He wants to go upstairs, into his brother's room, pick through the closets and sort through old relics. It's calling him… but so is the door. What if Papyrus stumbles in, injured and falling down and Sans needs to tend to him, but he spent the precious time invading his brother's personal space? What if he dusts right there, because no one is there to help him, to save him when he needs his brother most?

So Sans stays guarding the door, waiting for something he doesn't know will happen, knowing instead that something else will happen, something he can't know. 

He's confused. He's scared. 

He wants his brother. 

The wait seems to take ages. Ages for his brother to come back, screaming about his not going to work, or sockets void and body dusting, or for the Dogi to arrive with bad news and a box full of bonemeal, and it's taking so long he  _ knows _ it's going to be the third one, because that's what's always happened. 

Always, always, always.

 

...

 

That doesn't happen. 

 

Papyrus walks through the door, eyelights blown, large and gleaming, cold and red and standing out far more than they ever had before. The scarf always matched, evened out the harsh crimson stare, made it look “fashionable” (allegedly) instead of scary, but the effect is gone, because the scarf isn't red anymore.

It's gray. Everything is gray but Papyrus's sockets, and the smile that seems a little too wide, a little too solid, a little too manic. 

For a moment, Sans considers the other thought, Papyrus dusting on the doorstep, and fear for his brother resurfaces anew. He pictures Papyrus falling apart right there. 

But Papyrus doesn't. He's not dying. He's just standing there, not weak and failing, but proud and strong,  _ stronger than ever, _ covered in dust and  _ none of it is his.  _

 

Sans feels a shudder go through him as he realizes he placed his bets on the wrong pony. He wasn't wrong about something happening today. Papyrus could have died. Papyrus should have died. Something happened, and Papyrus  _ won.  _

 

_ Papyrus won.  _

 

That was _a lot_ of dust. 

 

Papyrus won…  

 

There's something especially empty about his sockets. There's something about the glow. There's something different. There's something wrong. There's something very, _very_ wrong with Papyrus.

He isn't dying. His body isn't broken, but –

“STOP STARING AND GO DO SOMETHING USEFUL.”

Normally, Papyrus's voice would carry an almost playful tone to it, haughty and chiding, but joking, brotherly and warm. Normally Sans would laugh and bite back. 

 

Instead, Sans scurries off into his own room, and with a brief moment of intense hesitation,  _ (Papyrus is his brother), _ locks the door behind him. Barricades it with his own weight. Stays there. 

All he feels is cold.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Downstairs, Papyrus tends to his own wounds and scrubs at his hands, fidgeting and fighting the dust caked inside his joints,  feeling stronger and dangerous and different and  _ scared. _ He’s never felt more lost and alone. 

(He'd never survived this long before.)

He stands there at the sink for what feels like hours… because it  _ is _ hours. He's wasting water, the bills will be astronomical. He keeps washing. Everything needs to be clean. 

The clock ticks to midnight, a brand new day. 

Everything is new. 

 

His phalanges should feel raw from all the scrubbing. 

 

All he feels is cold.

 

 

 


End file.
